


Isolation

by WroughtBetwixt



Series: JohnWard Prompts [24]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Espionage, Gen, Implied Relationships, Introspection, Love, Loyalty, Moral Ambiguity, Pre-HYDRA Reveal, Soul-Searching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-04
Updated: 2014-10-04
Packaged: 2018-02-19 19:57:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2400998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WroughtBetwixt/pseuds/WroughtBetwixt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grant is loyal to John. Period. He'll do what it takes to keep John safe. But if he can also keep his new team safe by pretending to be a heartless bastard, so be it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Isolation

It was true enough: Grant was not, at face value, a people person.

His idea of a good time was a quiet room, a couple fingers of whiskey and a good book. He’d much rather be out in the woods by himself than at a club or party, and of course he preferred to go on missions with as few people as possible. It wasn’t because he felt like other people were less intelligent or less capable; Fitz and Simmons were smarter than him, when it came to science anyways, and May was perfectly capable in combat. It’s just that the more people that got involved in his life, the more complicated everything got. 

It was because Grant was a people person, that he kept himself away. It hurt to get attached, and Grant knew he got attached too easily. Being around people, working with them, getting invested in their lives... it made it so much harder to walk away, in the end, and it made it so much harder to keep them safe from who and what he was. The closer people got, the more likely they were to find out what was going on. The more likely they were to get hurt. And this time... Grant cared. He liked this group of misfits. It was a simple spying mission, that was all, but if Skye or Fitz or anyone else got too close, found out the wrong things, that would change. He didn’t want that. He wanted to protect them from that. From him. 

If everything went right, the team would be safe; they weren’t bad people, and it wasn’t their fault that SHIELD was corrupt, outdated, crumbling under the weight of it’s own uselessness and hypocrisy. If everything went right, then they’d never even know he was anything other than a SHIELD agent. He’d just casually get assigned elsewhere, and start again. Still, he would walk away. When the mission was done, Grant would turn his back on them and return to Hydra, return to John, just like he always had. 

SHIELD agents did it all the time. Infiltrate an enemy organization, gather information or worse, and walk away. SHIELD saw no problems with it; just because they saw themselves as being “the good guys” in this mess didn’t suddenly make their own laundry less dirty. If they saw it as justified, why should Hydra feel any different? Why should Grant? It was business. It was war. SHIELD agents returned back to SHIELD at the end of the day, because SHIELD was their family and where they owed their loyalty. It was no different for Hydra members, and it was no different for Grant. John was his family, his life, his everything. It was John that held his loyalty, and his love. He wouldn’t betray a fifteen-year-long relationship for the team, no matter how much he liked them. If he chose SHIELD over Hydra, over John, that would be the true betrayal.

Of course, they wouldn’t see it that way, if they found out. They’d cry about betrayal, how could he, why would he, how dare he. They’d condemn him before he even had a chance to explain how hard he tried to make sure they’d been safe, how he hadn’t wanted them to get hurt. They wouldn’t give him a chance to explain that he had someone relying on him to get this information, that it was life or death, and that he’d rather die himself than allow John to just slip away. They wouldn’t care that Hydra, all of this, everything, was done for love. SHIELD talked a big game about protection and about all lives being worth saving, but the minute they found out he was Hydra, that John was Hydra, all that supposed compassion and mercy would be nowhere to be found. 

They wouldn’t find out. Not if Grant could help it.

So he let Maria Hill draw her little poops with knives coming out of it, he let the team members make their jokes and let them poke fun at his attitude. It kept them safe. It kept John safe. And if he could make sure both of those statements remained true, Grant could endure the loneliness. It was a fair price to pay.


End file.
